I had the opportunity
to perform Nexus by Brad Albers for oboe and synthesized
tape at this summer's I.D.R.S. Convention in Boulder. Perhaps
my experience in preparing and performing Nexus will help
others who are planning to perform this or similar pieces.
As orchestral and chamber players, we are oriented to visual cues from a conductor and from other players for pulse and tempo changes. The challenge and interest of a tape piece is maintaining exact ensemble with the tape and with only aural cues to rely on.
Tempo changes occurred in Nexus which gave me only one measure to feel the new tempo and come in with the tape. Some tape sounds were quite complex rhythmically, making it difficult to find the pulse. At times there was no clear beat for several bars before a musical event reestablished the pulse. Some tempo changes had clear cues in the score which exactly indicated the new tempo, but those cues were obscured by other tape sounds which were nonrhythmic in nature.
I solved many of my ensemble problems by reorganizing my part. Brad gave me a score eighteen pages long with each tape sound notated. This was essential for learning the music, but impractical for performance because of the numerous page turns and because it was confusing visually. I spent hours listening to small sections of the music, picking out the one or two lines in the music which my ear focused on while playing. Then I cut up the score and, using the oboe part and my selected cues, created my own six page performance part. (I would be glad to send this part to those interested in performing Albers' composition.)
Finding which sounds to listen for and reorganizing my part was one of the challenges the piece presented. Another was achieving the right balance between tape and oboe.
A tape must be loud enough so that the performer can hear over his/her instrument while playing. When the tape is sufficiently loud enough for the instrumentalist to hear, it can drown out that instrument. Or the instrument will be heard but the tape will be offensively loud for the audience. Ideally, a separate onstage monitor for the performer should be used. Two levels are set, one onstage that makes the tape audible to the performer, and another for the audience that allows the instrument to be heard.
A further consideration is that tape sound may be absorbed when an audience is present in the hall. The balance set in a rehearsal will have to be adjusted during the performance by a competent technician.
Nexus has a very large dynamic range which makes it quite difficult to find the perfect tape level. No onstage monitor was available at Boulder. Two big speakers were set up, one on either side of the stage. I turned them toward the middle of the stage as far as I dared. It was only partially successful. I couldn't hear the softest section of the tape and I wasn't heard in the loudest section! Currently Brad is remixing the tape to solve this problem.
Brad Albers and I both teach at the University of South Florida, so I was able to collaborate with him directly about my performance. I discovered that he had composed the oboe part on the flute, his instrument. He was very flexible about adapting the part to better suit the oboe. We dropped a few notes down an octave on pp. 8-11 (a section containing repeated high F's). We changed the dynamic of the final note, low C, from a decrescendo to a crescendo, creating an ending that was more dramatic and more feasible.
Technically, I found the piece quite simple to play except for two measures which were nearly impossible because of fingering problems. With Brad's permission I changed two notes in the difficult passages making them playable. Meanwhile he reworked the remaining sections, making them more demanding and soloistic.
Brad explained to me that some sections of the oboe part are conceived in a jazz style. These included pp. 1-7 and p. 18. 1 had to rethink my interpretation, bringing out the syncopated rhythms and trying to make the technical passages sound improvised.
Learning Nexus was the most rewarding and absorbing work I have done in quite a while because it required me to think creatively and solve problems. I found it necessary to practice three different ways: on oboe without the tape to learn the notes, listening to the tape and singing the oboe part, and finally, on oboe with the tape.
I had to listen to the tape many times and memorize the sounds in order to feel comfortable in performance. Learning the tape "by ear" was much more difficult than learning piano parts to any oboe sonata because of the extreme variety of timbres employed on the tape.
The structure of Nexus shows the evolution of music through different style periods. The piece includes renaissance, baroque and nineteenth century sections employing a fugue played respectively on synthesized organ, harpsichord and piano. Episodes of purely electronic sounds alternate with the fugue sections. From the audience response I received I found that most people enjoyed the keyboard fugues. The familiar sounds made the music accessible on first hearing. I enjoyed both the familiarity of the fugues and the wonderful variety of the electronic sounds. My favorite passages used synthesized oboe. The oboist plays in unison with or echoing the electronic oboe. It's an interesting idea to blend and contrast the natural and synthesized oboe sounds, and I think it works.
The following are comments of Brad Albers from a recent conversation we had about Nexus, electronic music, and the role of the performer:
"All the tape sounds in Nexus are computer generated, not prerecorded. The music, including the fugal sections, is all originally composed.
I feel that Nexus resembles an instrumental concerto. The tape score is composed orchestrally, the palette of electronic sound possibilities being even greater than that of a symphony orchestra. The advantage of tape vs. orchestra is that it's cheaper, and the instrumentalist can rehearse with the tape accompaniment at his/her convenience.
Unlike an orchestra, a tape is fixed and will be consistent in every rehearsal and performance. Thus, the creativity and variety of each performance will depend entirely on the live performer. The audience will focus its attention on the soloist, even more than during an orchestra concert.
All my electronic pieces are written using at least one live performer. Have you ever been to a tape alone concert? It's awful. Who wants to clap for two speaker boxes?"
(Brad Albers' Nexus is published by the American Composers Alliance, New York. Editor.)